Quick, what’s our mission? Can you remember it? “The whole…something?” The mission of Grace Covenant Church is to proclaim the whole gospel for the whole person through the whole city to the whole world.

I know, that sounds like a tall order, perhaps even impossible. Is it measurable? Definable?

How will we know that we are accomplishing our mission? Well, we have four goals – Worship, Growth in Grace, Fellowship and Service, and Evangelism and Missions. While you could probably figure out what we mean by these four goals, eventually we’ll discuss each of them. For now, however, I want to focus on Fellowship & Service.

John Donne was right. No man is an island, entire of itself. We are made for relationships, with both our Creator and other creatures. Yet, we live busy, distracted, and disconnected lives. One of man’s greatest fears is being alone, but we do little to cultivate meaningful relationships.

The Bible places a great deal of emphasis on how we, as Christians, think. Just to give a couple of examples, Romans 12:2 commands “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind….” In other words, our minds need to be transformed so that we no longer think the same way as the world around us thinks.

“I have a young child who won’t sit still in worship. What can I do?” This situation is not at all uncommon, especially in a church with young families. This is a question that I have asked and wrestled with on numerous occasions. How can we train our children for worship? Unfortunately, there is not a single sentence that will answer that question. In fact, to answer this question with any sufficiency is to unpack a treasure chest of thoughts and practices.